Almost Autumn by Marianne Kaurin

Author:Marianne Kaurin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.

Ole Rustad turns off his alarm clock and peers out into the dark room. Anna is lying on her side; she’s kicked off the eiderdown and her large stomach spills out toward the edge of the bed. He’s told her that he needs to leave early, his taxi has been requisitioned for a job he doesn’t know much about, but he’ll be home again just after three, the job will probably be done by then. He’s kept the rest to himself. Anna had fired a barrage of questions at him in a worried tone; was he getting himself involved in something, just before the baby was due? He had done his best to allay her fears, told her not to be afraid, promised that he would buy a new cradle with the money he expected to receive—a cradle and some clothes for the baby, maybe a coat for Anna and something for the girls too, some new dresses. She had smiled.

As he rolls out of the bed he can feel the blood pumping, his body feels like a pressure cooker, his vision goes black, and he has to sit for a few seconds on the edge of the bed until balance is restored. He feels queasy. His stomach grumbles.

He picks up the clothes lying on the chair by the side of the bed and gets dressed. His shirt smells sweaty, but he doesn’t want to open the wardrobe to fetch a new one; doesn’t want to wake the others, just wants to slip out of the house unnoticed and do what he has to until three o’clock, when he can return home once again.

He takes a look inside the bread box. There’s half a loaf left; he removes it from its paper bag and holds it in his hands, bloody hell, it’s so dry. He takes the cheese from the cupboard, slices off a chunk, it smells strong, sour, but there’s nothing else. He stands in front of the mirror in the hallway with his bread and cheese in one hand and his coat in the other. Bloody hell, he looks exhausted, and it’s so bloody cold too, God, he’s looking forward to the day that all of this is over, once and for all.

He rummages around inside the bowl on the shelf beneath the mirror, finds the house key, the car key, opens the door, and closes it behind him carefully. A window in the stairwell has been left open, the cold wind blows in, a bitter November gust. He passes the door to the Sterns’ apartment on the third floor, stops in his tracks, everything swirls around him for a moment all over again: the questions, the assurances he’s given himself. There’s not a sound to be heard. He carries on down the stairs.

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